


Call of a Stone Heart

by Wrightsworth



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Pern Fusion, Bigotry & Prejudice, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical language, Crossover, Dragon Riders, Dragons, Kaer Morhen, Light Angst, M/M, Slow Burn, WIP, very slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:28:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23936113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrightsworth/pseuds/Wrightsworth
Summary: Jaskier had known about dragons from the songs with their great, swirling eyes and tongues of fire, but he had notknown. This was fire made flesh, precious metal given living form.So distracted was he by the magnificent creature, Jaskier barely noticed its rider dismount, so it was a shock when he stomped towards them, his snow-white hair half pulled back, half falling on his shoulders, eyes as gold as the sun.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Implied Jaskier | Dandelion/Other(s), Past Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg - Relationship
Comments: 69
Kudos: 227





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at The Witcher fandom - I'm much more of a fandom reader than a fandom writer. I have a few chapters down but this is NOT finished! I am a terrible fic finisher! Please be warned. I anticipate this being in the 15-20k range. Painfully slow burn. Unbeta'd, we die like Renfri. I love you all.
> 
> Prior knowledge of Anne McCaffrey's Pern dragons is helpful, but not required. In Pern, dragons are bonded with human riders through a process called Imprinting. This is crucial since Pern is regularly threatened by a comet called the Red Star, which sheds spores called Thread that eat through organic material but cannot survive drowning or fire. Dragons, with their ability to chew firestone and breathe fire, are able to destroy the Thread before it reaches the surface. Dragons only come in certain colors, and only gold "queens" are able to clutch eggs. Dragons have the ability to teleport by traveling "Between" dimensions. "Between" is extremely cold and dark; if a rider dies, a dragon will often follow by vanishing "Between."
> 
> I have combined details from various Witcher and Pern books in whatever way I felt like at the time.
> 
> Title from "The Song of the White Wolf" from the Netflix show's OST:
> 
>   
> _The call of the White Wolf is loudest at the dawn _  
>  _The call of a stone heart is broken and alone _____  
>  _Born of Kaer Morhen ___  
>  _Born of No Love ___  
>  _The song of the White Wolf is cold as driven snow ___

“Have you heard? Umnoth has clutched.”

Jaskier’s fingers froze where they were tuning his lute, his whole body going still in the hopes that the people behind him would continue without noticing him. It was a quiet afternoon in a tavern in Vizima Hold, the smoky room flushed with sunlight as regular hold-folk ate their late lunches and gossiped. Jaskier was tucked away by the banked fireplace, definitely not avoiding a farmer whose wife he had become acquainted with the week before.

“Who would have thought, a gold rider coming out of Vengerberg! How many eggs did you say there were?”

“Three dozen, nearly!” The first man was brimming with excitement; Jaskier felt the beginning of something even more ferocious than excitement tingling in his spine. The last gold - the _only_ gold dragon this side of the continent had clutched some thirty eggs, the first laid in over a century. Dragons were returning to Pern. Music filled his mind almost at once. _The last of eggs was lain, the continent was saved-_

Jaskier’s fingers twitched on the lute, already composing the tune for the new song - the hatching song! Too late he saw a red-bearded man with a thick ale belly stomp through the doorway.

“You! Skunk-faced bard!” The tavern occupants turned to look at him as one.

Jaskier lept to his feet, lute in hand.

“I’ll have you know, skunks are refined creatures and hardly deserve-” Jaskier began. The cuckold farmer very rudely interrupted him, giving a great roar before he lunged at the bard. Jaskier jumped out of his grasp and onto the nearest table, bowed magnanimously to the room, and bolted through the kitchen to the back alleyway.

There was a skip in his step as Jaskier pointed his fine leather boots toward Kaer Morhen Weyr, once a nearly abandoned mound of rubble since the sacking, soon to be filled with representatives from every hold on the continent - kings, queens, sorcerers, and warriors! All of them hoping to Impress a rare dragon. 

Jaskier could feel the epic at his fingertips, for surely this was the beginning of a legendary era, with every soothsayer and anointed oracle predicting threadfall within ten turns. Musicians from the Harper Hall to the Hold of Golden Towers would be singing about this, from tavern boys to that wool-headed Valdo Marx, but Jaskier would be singing the very best.

No other harper, he felt sure, loved dragons as much as Jaskier did. Countless evenings in his childhood were lost to the nanny’s stories of the great fire-tongued creatures protecting mankind from the deadly thread, and the daring riders that soared with them.

Jaskier had been a child the first time he heard someone who disagreed with the legends.

“My father says Lettenhove Hold has no business sending runnerbeasts to the weyr!” Peytr, a hold brat who was two turns older than Jaskier and looking more like his father by the day, spat in the dirt.

“But the weyrs need them!” Jaskier protested. This was in the days before his voice dropped and it was unusually high, something that embarrassed his father and delighted his music teacher. “They cannot farm and protect us from the thread!”

The other boys laughed at that, incredulous.

“Are you daft, Julian?” Mikael, the smithy’s boy, added. “There’s been no thread for two hundred turns.”

Jaskier hated it when they used his given name. He crossed his arms.

“And if it does come back, the thread, will you regret not giving only one in every hundred runnerbeast for your lives?” Jaskier demanded.

Peytr spat, this time in Jaskier’s face.

“The thread ain’t coming back, and my father will not send a single tribute to that flaming pile o’ rubble.”

But Jaskier had been right; the red star was returning. And Lettenhove Hold, not Jaskier’s home for some ten turns now, was sending over five hundred animals in their first tribute alone.

After three long weeks on the road, Jaskier was forced to admit, to his chagrin, entering the great Kaer Morhen Weyr was more difficult than he had first assumed.

His first - and very reasonable! - plan was to enter with the Temerian pig farmers with whom he had traveled, but he was stopped at the door by a muscular, thread-scarred rider.

“No extras,” the man said, stopping Jaskier cold with one heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Ah, good rider!” Jaskier exclaimed, looking the man up and down. He seemed young for a Kaer Morhen rider, although you could never really tell their age by appearance, with brown hair and a vicious scar down the right side of his otherwise-handsome face. As Jaskier watched, his amber eyes flickered like a cat’s eyes in the shadows cast by the weyr gate.

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am the bard Jaskier! Renown musician and historian of Oxenfurt Harper Hall, recently of Vizima, and at your service.” He gave a courtly bow, only somewhat hindered by the rider’s immovable stance. “I fear I have not yet met your acquaintance, rider…?”

The rider’s lips twitched slightly, amused.

“Eskel.”

“Esteemed rider Eskel! Please allow me to grace your halls with music-”

“Sorry, no. We have only so much space available, and all of it will be needed for the candidates.” He turned, somewhat tiredly, to watch the steady line of foodstuffs being carted past the gate. “Although entertainment for all these hold-folk might not be a bad idea.”

Sensing his opportunity, Jaskier opened his mouth, ready to expound on the benefits of a trained harper at any large gathering when he heard it.

Wings.

The livestock being herded into the weyr became restless, some crying and bleating in fear. A great shadow flickered over the grassy mountain pass as something that had not been there moments before flashed into being from _between._ Wings thumped like impossibly loud heartbeats as a shining bronze dragon landed heavily before the gate.

Shells but it was _huge_!

Jaskier had known about dragons from the songs with their great, swirling eyes and tongues of fire, but he had not _known_. This was fire made flesh, precious metal given living form. As he gaped like a milksop, he felt, rather than saw, Eskel’s amusement beside him, probably used to fools like him staggering at such a view.

At that moment, the bronze turned and seemed to look directly at Jaskier so piercingly and with such intelligent swirling eyes that the bard was frozen to the spot. For a bare moment, he felt something, like a fleeting thought, brush his mind, here and gone again like a daydream.

So distracted was he by the magnificent creature, Jaskier barely noticed its rider dismount, so it was a shock when he stomped towards them, his snow-white hair half pulled back, half falling on his shoulders, eyes as gold as the sun.

“Geralt,” Eskel greeted the rider as he approached. Geralt, Jaskier thought, heart beating fast. There was something about the rider that struck him deeper than even the dragon. Like Eskel, he had visible thread scars, one thin slash bisecting his brow, as though it had nearly taken the eye. The air around him sang of heartbreak.

“This here is the bard Jaskier,” Eskel said, clapping him on the shoulder as though they were friends and he had not just denied him entry. “I am thinking he might provide a welcome distraction for the hold-folk, keep them from poking around the weyr and other mischief.” He paused with a sly look, for the bard or the bronze rider, Jaskier did not know. “Maybe from mischief like bothering our favorite grumpy rider, no?”

Geralt barely glanced at him before he grunted.

“No.”

Eskel sighed, unsurprised, and the other rider loped through the gate and vanished into the weyr. “Sorry flower, looks like you are out of luck.”

As he was turned firmly away yet again, Jaskier snuck another glance - alright, a _few_ more glances - at the bronze on the grassy field. It seemed to look at Jaskier, who felt that something of a thought once again, before it hunched like a tight spring and shot into the air, flying clear over the great, crumbly stone walls of the weyr and down into what must be the heated sands where the clutch waited.

Jaskier could not help himself, sighing a little as he regarded the walls. He had not climbed much since he scaled the walls of Lettenhove Hold as a child.

Well, he thought, letting the spring back into his step as he walked, tonight would be as good a time to relearn it as any.

There was an idiot trying to scale the walls of Kaer Morhen Weyr.

“He’s going to get himself killed,” Geralt said idly, cracking a nut against a stone on the rubble next to him and eating it.

 _Why not stop him, then?_ Roath asked, his eyes swirling in amusement. The bronze craned his neck over the pile of stone where they were perched on the abandoned west wings of the weyr where, incidentally, they had a perfect view of the climber.

“What does it matter to me?” Geralt said gruffly. “A man makes his own decisions, even stupid ones.”

Even as dark as it was this long after sunset, it was impossible for the rider and dragon to miss the climber with their keen eyes. He was wearing _teal_ for flame’s sake.

The bard was more nimble than most of the skinny hold-folk, Geralt had to admit. Most of the visiting mainlanders were pale, uncoordinated, and unused to hard labor and the lack of comfort offered at the weyr. He had spent most of the day ferrying dignitaries and hopeful candidates from their plush castles to the rugged and cold halls of his home.

If he heard one more powdered candidate complain about the wind, he was going to let Roath eat someone.

 _As if I would_ , Roath snorted. _Hardly any good meat on them._

The bard had reached a gap in the wall near the top. He was going to have to jump to make it. As Geralt and the dragon looked on, the bard paused, shuffled his small pack and lute around to his back like some strange beetle, and crouched from his hold, about to leap.

Geralt’s knuckles whitened as they clenched the rock beneath him, his body leaning forward tensely.

The bard jumped.

His hands caught nimbly on the next ledge and he hauled himself triumphantly over the top, regarding the other side of the wall as he prepared to clamber down.

 _Does not matter to you at all, I see._ Roath’s smug tone made Geralt roll his eyes.

Roath had been nearly unbearable since they had finally returned from their duties scouting holds for candidates and had seen the brightly-clad harper sweet-talking Eskel at the gates.

 _Him,_ Roath had informed Geralt almost immediately, still sensitive from rooting out those with potential to imprint one of the hatchlings. _Geralt, he’s perfect._

Perfect, Geralt thought in disgust. Trying to manipulate his brother to give him entry, looking at Roath with the same badly disguised fear as the rest of them.

 _He is not afraid,_ Roath insisted, but Geralt knew better.

Trust in dragonkind and their riders had diminished in the centuries since thread had last scourged the land. Geralt remembered it, even if the common people did not, how the red star ate away life and land, always hungry as it spat poisonous thread upon the continent.

When at last the star had departed their orbit at the last conjunction, Geralt had let himself be hopeful. No longer would he lose brothers and sisters to the fight, perhaps an age of peace could be enjoyed.

He had been wrong.

In a few short decades, the holds went from groveling for protection to spitting in their faces and making war against each other. Eventually, the weyr were barely able to afford upkeep for the castle and food for the dragons. Their situation became dire as they lacked the birth of new golden queens. Soon riders became nearly extinct, dragons lost to disease and hateful human attacks.

Geralt remembered the grim day he left his flames and picked up a sword to defend the weyrfolk.

All humans were the same.

 _Not your hatchling,_ Roath reminded him.

“That’s low, even for you,” Geralt said to his dragon. Of course Ciri was different. Every dragon that met her felt her mind and they _knew._ She was their Destiny and the future of the weyr. Geralt cared for her long after he had given up caring for anyone new.

 _When am I wrong, stone heart?_ Roath asked with unexpected gentleness. _This one, too. He is meant to be here. You feel it as well._

Roath pointed his snout to the bard, finally reaching the ground inside the weyr walls and making his way toward the kitchens where he would undoubtedly run into Vesemir.

 _You can leave him to it,_ Roath pointed out, eyes swirling for a moment.

“Hmm.” Geralt stood and jumped from the wall into a slowly crumbling courtyard, startling a few Nilfgaardian candidates.

“Rider Geralt!” One of them said. They startled again when Roath reared up from where he had tucked himself behind the wall and launched into the air, going to where Umnoth was guarding her eggs.

Geralt watched the candidate’s expressions as they ranged from fear to awe and jealousy. He did not like the look he found in the young man at the back with sallow skin and light brown hair. His eyes were greedy and cold.

“You shouldn't be here,” Geralt growled, and the young candidates tensed. “Go!” They began to scamper back to the rooms he and the other riders had spent weeks repairing for the ungrateful guests. The young man alone looked back to where Roath had disappeared over the weyr and Geralt felt the hairs stand up at the back of his neck.

Nothing but trouble.

Geralt waited until they had turned a corner and were out of sight before he turned on heel, the wherry-headed bard pushed from his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

As Jaskier sat tuning his lute in the bustling great hall, he could barely believe his luck. His - admittedly flawed - plan to sneak into the weyr had worked!

After he made his way to the kitchens, he had swiftly charmed a lovely and well-endowed cook with tales of his journey to see the hatching and she had set him up in the corner to entertain the kitchen staff with a modest bowl of stew and a mug of hardy ale.

While filling himself with the simple yet hearty meal, he made the mistake of strumming his lute when he realized his daring ascent had scraped up the tools of his trade, his precious fingers, more than he thought. To his dismay, tacky blood from his scratches stuck to the instrument, affecting the sound and making his fingertips throb in pain.

Jaskier’s hiss drew the attention of a beautiful curly-haired woman who had been processing herbs at a corner table. With no hesitation, she set to wrapping his fingers with a herbed honey balm and impossibly soft woven bandages.

“My gracious lady!” Jaskier exclaimed. “You have saved my hands, nay, my life! How might I repay your much-needed ministrations?”

The healer giggled at his flirtations, but her eyes were serious and kind.

“Call me Triss. Triss Merigold, I am head healer at this weyr.” Jaskier tried not to let his eyes boggle. Head weyr healer was no mean feat - the harper ranking of such a role would be very prestigious! Yet Healer Merigold showed no signs of condescension. When she was done treating his fingers she returned to making tinctures, something younger healers would have done for her at Healer Hall.

“Do you only play the lute, harper?”

“Indeed not, my fair healer! I am trained in the lute, viol, and harp, and of course, a bard’s most important instrument, the voice!”

“Go on then,” Triss said, a bit of laughter in her eyes. “Entertain us with a song.”

It was a request Jaskier had never refused in his life.

Jaskier sang, first folk ditties, then The Fishmonger’s Daughter, warming up to The Romance of Faranth. When he tired of ballads, he started his own compositions, little pieces here and there that were forming about the hatching, and then even the new tune he had begun composing after seeing the great bronze dragon that afternoon. It was much better with the lute, really, but Triss and the kitchen staff did not seem to mind, seeming to lean closer in the warmth by the ovens, casting glances at the bard while they kneaded hardy bread and seasoned slow roasted meats.

So enchanted was he by the warm atmosphere of the audience that Jasier was really quite surprised when a voice cut him off.

“By Faranth, what is going on here?” The booming voice sliced through the room. A stout rider filled the doorway that led into the weyr hall, his grey beard and eyebrows struck cast shadow on a grizzled face. He looked older than any rider Jaskier had yet seen, and his yellow eyes were stern.

At his shoulder was Eskel, the young rider from earlier that day. Jaskier felt his heart stutter in dismay.

But the rider only seemed amused.

“So you got in, little bard! And are already at work I see.” The older rider glanced at Eskel.

“You know this harper?” Eskel shrugged and came to where Jaskier was standing, clapping him mightily on the shoulder.

“He has generously offered to entertain our guests with his song. Mayhap that will keep them off your back, eh Vesemir?” He shot a wink at the older rider.

Vesemir. The name was familiar to Jaskier. The old brown rider made his great-great grandfather seem young. His stocky dragon Meroth was one of the only browns to mate a queen, so many turns ago.

The brown rider looked unamused at Eskel’s levity, but he must have been truly desperate to be rid of the hold-folk candidates because he only sighed.

“We’re not paying you,” he said, pointing a stern finger at Jaskier. “Tips only. And you eat common food like the rest of us.” He turned to Eskel. “Any more space left in the warm rooms?”

Eskel shrugged. “Maybe by the north tower.”

Vesemir shook his head like this was expected. He turned to Jaskier.

“No wandering. And no distracting weyr-workers. In the mornings when you are not playing you’ll be doing something useful. We have no space for slackers in the weyr.”

“I could use some help,” Triss spoke up from her corner. Jaskier doubted very much that she needed more help than she had moments ago. He would owe her very much indeed.

Vesemir did not seem any more fooled than Jaskier, but like anyone, he seemed to soften a bit under the healer’s warmth.

“Very well. You will work mornings with Healer Merigold. And you will not cause trouble.” Vesemir spoke with an edge of harried desperation, as though the words alone could make it so. He seemed to hear it himself and get wearier, like someone whose orders had been ignored a few too many times.

“Eskel, you show him to the rooms. I have to deal with the Aedirn brat again.” The older rider snatched a bottle of spirits from a wall rack and stomped out, muttering under his breath.

As Vesemir’s footsteps faded, the kitchen filled again with quiet chatter.

“Well!” Eskel said brightly, looking down at Jaskier. “That went better than expected.”

Triss nodded her agreement. “I’ll meet you in the morning in the Great Hall, bard. What shall we call our very own harper?”

“If it would please you, call me Jaskier,” the bard said with a low bow.

“Let’s get you to your own quarters then, _buttercup,_ ” Eskel said, correctly catching the origin of his name as he nearly dragged him from the kitchens. Rest sounded marvelous to the bard, who suddenly realized how tired he was after weeks of travel and his daring climb over the walls.

“You changed your mind about having me on?” Jaskier found himself saying as the rider led him through a series of confusing corridors. Jaskier promptly felt like kicking himself - never look a gift runnerbeast in the mouth!

The rider did not seem bothered, however. He barely glanced his way as they passed through the winding corridors.

“You cheered up the kitchens, and they could use cheering.” He paused. “None of us were prepared for this, I think. We got used to being the rock in the boot of the holds, at some point. Now that everyone wants a piece of the weyr...well.” The rider stopped so suddenly, Jaskier almost ran straight into him.

“Here,” Eskel said, gesturing to a grey door that nearly blended into the stone wall. “Any further in the north wing will be too cold for hold-folk like you.”

Jaskier blinked, then tentatively opened the door. Inside was a simple room with an old mattress and furs at one side, a tapestry with a white dragon hung on the wall. There were a handful of half-burnt candles, a chamber pot, and a washing basin in the corner.

Jaskier turned to thank the rider, but Eskel was already gone, the hallway empty in both directions. The bard shrugged, unslung his lute, and had barely laid down on the surprisingly soft furs before falling asleep.

In the morning Jaskier only got lost three or four times before he joined some hold-folk walking to the great hall and hurried to meet Healer Merigold.

The great hall was already bustling. Long wooden tables stretched across the room, piles of crusty brown bread and shiny kiln-forged mugs weighed down one end of each and the rest was filled with busy weyr folk. Their voices echoed off the high ceilings; the soaring rafters made the room feel impossibly huge. It was fairly made for music, Jaskier thought with satisfaction. There must have been many nights of song in the glory days.

Jaskier gathered up a bowl of porridge and a steaming cup of klah and found a place by the roaring fire. As he ate, the bard began to see the awkward separations in the room. The candidates, now that he noticed them, stood out like odd flowers on a mountain in their fine clothes. The hold-folk kept to themselves, muttered quietly to each other, and barely touched the hearty and simple fare they were given.

Some effort had been made, Jaskier noticed, idly tuning his lute between sips of klah. The candidate’s tables had a rough approximation of table runners, and more candles adorned their corner of the hall. The riders, equally obvious as the candidates in a way from their scars and powerful gaits, had no need for the extra light with their enhanced eyes.

“There you are, master bard.”

Jaskier turned, already smiling, to the healer. “My lady Triss! You look radiant this morning.”

“Must be Vesemir’s hot klah gone to your head,” she said, eyes smiling. As she spoke, a bright flash of gold slithered up her arm and around her neck.

Jaskier’s eyes widened.

“Ah yes, this is Summer. Say hullo, little one.” The golden fire lizard regarded Jaskier with smooth emerald eyes and then gave a short, musical caw. Jaskier laughed, delighted.

“What a marvelous creature you are!” The bard exclaimed. The little gold seemed to preen, swirling her eyes at him and stretching out her delicate wings.

“She’s a bit jealous of all the fanfare and decided to join us today, but only if she is well behaved.” Triss directed her last words at the fire lizard, who chittered indignantly and tucked her face into her master’s red hair.

The healer turned to Jaskier. “Well then. How much do you know about dragons?”

Triss updated him on her work with the clutch and dragon upkeep as she led them through another winding path. Jaskier could not have recalled the way if his life depended on it. He kept stealing glances at the dragonet, who continued a steady stream of chatter as though in serious conversation.

“Dragons almost never hurt people, except when they are Impressing, but the candidates have been driving them up the wall lately.” Triss sighed. “Just keep a good distance and they likely will leave you be.”

“The dragons or the candidates?” Jaskier joked, just as they stepped out into the brightness and right into the clutching dome.

This was the heart of the mountain, Jaskier realized. The great cavernous dome tapered into the mouth of an empty volcano, its high walls, formed by the mountain itself, made the main hall seem small. The tall, rocky walls were open to the sky where light streamed in and the heat from the cavern turned to mist in the frigid mountain air. A handful of dragons dipped in and out of the cave in bright blurs of green and blue and brown. Glittering stalagmites littered the periphery of the room where a few riders milled about, giving way to a great sandpit, and in the middle of the sand, shining like a hoard of treasure, was an enormous gold dragon.

Umnoth, the wild queen, who had somehow Impressed upon the weyrwoman, Yennefer. The only gold this side of Cintra had flaming violet eyes and wings much larger even than Geralt’s bronze Jaskier had seen the day before. As Jaskier watched, the great gold _breathed_ into the sands and they began to shimmer with heat, warming the dully colorful eggs speckling the pit.

“Yes, it is a bit much to take in, at first,” Triss said from beside Jaskier, who realized his jaw had been hanging open and snapped it shut with a click. She beckoned him to the edge of the sands. “Here, you have to wear a pair of these. The sand is so hot, it would burn your feet.”

Jaskier grabbed one of a dozen pairs of heavy boots lining the path and slipped them on over his leather shoes. Summer, who seemed even more excited now that they were close to Umnoth, launched into the air and circled overhead, still chirruping.

“Here, carry this,” Triss handed Jaskier her pack and led him to the closest egg, a dull blue partly buried in the sand. Triss rifled through the pack in Jaskier’s arms and pulled out what looked like a polished horn, then held the small end against the egg. She listened for a moment, then nodded and continued to the next egg.

They made their way like this through each egg, Triss sometimes measuring the width of an egg or taking its temperature and marking it in a scroll. The gold dragon mostly ignored them, until they reached a grayish egg which Triss listened to with a grim expression.

“I am so sorry, Umnoth,” the healer said, looking up at the gold, who had swiveled her head to regard them. “This one did not make it, after all.”

The gold opened her massive jaws and let out a low keen that reverberated through the hollow cavern, the sand pit, and Jaskier’s bones. Above them, more dragons joined Umnoth’s cry, a chorus that raised the hairs at the back of Jaskier’s neck and sent chills down his spine.

Then it was over, and Umnoth tucked her great head under one wing, apparently asleep.

Jaskier felt stuck to the ground where he stood, but Triss, somehow immune to the charismatic draw of the dragon’s lament, beckoned him to follow as she continued with her work quietly.

The last egg Triss attended was larger than the rest, and glittered dimly in its sandy nest. A few candidates hovered nearby, watching it every so often with greedy eyes.

“Another gold,” Jaskier breathed, surprised.

“Yes. Umnoth here is a proud mother with a quite successful first clutch,” Triss said, resting one hand against the queen’s flank. The gold did not, as Jaskier expected, seem to mind, letting out a soft bur.

While Triss inspected the new queen egg, Jaskier wandered a bit. Some brown riders were rubbing down their dragon’s leathery skin with oil against one wall, the dragons stretching out their wings luxuriously under the attention. A few candidates watched them, taking instruction, one young man nodding especially vigorously, taking notes on the lesson.

Jaskier was about to go over and ask about dragon skincare, maybe embellish his future songs, when he was interrupted.

“You there, with the lute,” someone said from Jaskier’s left. It was a dark-eyed woman in a flowing grey dress. Two young men in Nilfgaardian finery stood beside her, watching him from the wall nearest the queen egg. As Jaskier turned, the woman looked him up and down, expression souring. “ _You_ cannot be a candidate. What in Faranth’s egg is a bard doing at Kaer Morhen?”

The man to her left snorted. In spite of himself, Jaskier’s ears burned and he stroked his lute strap self-consciously. He had not felt shame much since his first days at the academy in Oxenfurt Hall, when there were so many songs he did not know.

They were right, he reminded himself. He was not there as a candidate, of course. Somehow, their utter dismissal still stung.

“A good harper follows where the stories are,” Jaskier replied lightly, shifting the healer’s pack from one arm to the other.

“But then, there is no such thing as a _good_ harper here in the north, eh Fringilla?” The other man said, smiling crookedly. “Nothing but bawdy tavern rhymes and cat screams.”

The female candidate, Fringilla, rolled her eyes. “When I am ranking weyrwoman, a proper Nilfgaardian composer can be flown in to write about our triumph over the red star.” She glanced down her nose at Jaskier, a remarkable feat since he was taller than her.

Jaskier rocked back on his heels and tried not to feel as if he were taking a physical blow. Why, he could not even _begin_ with how wrong they were. He had already thought of eight reasons why Nilfgaardian compositions were too dull for such subject matter, when, suddenly, all three candidates’ expressions went stiff.

“Awfully confident she’ll choose you,” said a voice, deep and gravelly, from right behind Jaskier.

Jaskier knew that voice. He shivered, in spite of himself, and turned to see rider Geralt towering over him.

Fringilla recovered remarkably quickly, considering how piercing the bronze rider’s eyes were. Jaskier wondered idly if his voice did not turn _her_ knees to jelly, also.

“I am the natural choice,” Fringilla said, adjusting her expensive skirts just so. “My uncle-”

“I know who your uncle is,” Geralt said, eyes flashing, although it could have been the light. “Do you think a dragon cares for pedigree? It is the dragon who chooses, not the rider. And the dragon is never wrong.”

Jaskier had just enough time to see the candidate clench her fists in the rich fabric of her skirts before the rider turned his gaze to the bard.

“You again,” the rider rumbled.

“Ah, yes. Me. Hello.”

“You are needed.” Jaskier blinked, and fought down the blush rising to his cheeks. Geralt tilted his head toward where Triss was waving.

“Ah, I see, of course! Of course that’s what you meant. Haha. Well, I’ll be on my way then-”

“Go.”

Jaskier went. A look over his shoulder showed Geralt walking up to a stunning woman in an elaborate black dress; her eyes caught the light and glinted violet. This must be Yennefer, then, the legendary and tempestuous gold rider. She and Geralt looked striking together in the glittering cavern, his white hair against her dark, both of them with eyes like jewels.

_Ah_ , Jaskier thought, feeling something in his chest twinge. Of course they would be perfect for each other - a bronze and a gold. A destined match.

Triss was on a stool beside a lean green dragon with one of its claws placed delicately on her lap. She rifled through the bag he was holding for a metal tool that looked vaguely like enormous pliers, which she then proceeded to use on the green’s infected claw.

Triss got a better look at the bard and paused. “Were you by the sands too long? You look a bit flushed, Jaskier.”

Startled, he felt his own warm cheeks and proceeded to blush more.

“No, no, I’m quite alright.” Triss glanced at him.

“If you say so. Be sure to tell me if it is too much.” She flipped her hair over one shoulder, leaving the other free for Summer to dart onto, still chittering. Triss ignored her. “Now, this is how you identify rotclaw…”

By afternoon, Jaskier was exhausted. His bones ached from being in uncomfortable positions and walking in the heavy metal-soled boots, and his skin was sticky with sweat and ash. He had become acquainted with a few stunning dragons - Faerth, the green with rotclaw, who allowed him to stroke the itchy skin under her chin, and Aoth, an energetic blue with dryscale who probably would have played tag with Summer and the bard if his rider had not stopped him.

The last dragon they saw was a massive, meaty bronze with thick cords of rippling muscles that shone in the low light of the cavern. The sands were mostly empty and the candidates had dispersed by the time he appeared at the lip of the mountain, drifted down on open wings, and landed heavily by Triss.

His rider slid easily from the bronze dragon’s back, as though the drop were two lengths and not twenty.

“Infected again, Merigold,” the rider said gruffly, crossing his arms.

“You need to use the ointment when I tell you to, Lambert,” Triss chided, opening a small tub of salve Jaskier now recognized from treating pussing wounds. “Turn for me, please, T’Roth.”

With surprising grace for such a large creature, the dragon carefully tilted his head so the left eye faced the healer. Jaskier bit back a gasp. Thread scar had sunk deep into the dragon’s face, splitting one eyelid which opened to reveal a milky eye. As they watched, a corner of the eye wept pink fluid.

Triss placed the salve in Jaskier’s hand. “Just a bit on the edges, see? I’ll make a salt wash, it won’t be a moment.”

Jaskier nodded and stepped toward the bronze, but his way was blocked by the rider.

“Lay a single hand on my dragon, hold-brat, and I’ll relieve you of it,” he said darkly, towering over the bard, who, in a move of great manliness, did not squeak in terror.

“Lambert!” Triss said sharply. “Be reasonable. Jaskier has been my help all day.”

“His kind don’t belong here!” Lambert growled. “Not on this mountain, not in this castle, not with  _ my dragon _ . Flame help me, Vesemir might be willing to turn a blind eye to what they did, but I never will.”

Even as he did it, Jaskier knew it was a mistake. He knew, but could not help himself.

He giggled.

The rider and the healer turned to him as one.

“Something funny to you, hold-brat?” Lambert said menacingly.

“Ah, no, certainly, it’s just…” Jaskier glanced at the bronze, flinched, and looked back at the rider. “Word choice, you see? ‘Blind eye?’” The bard grimaced. He knew it was bad, but the babble was unstoppable. He braced to be struck down where he stood.

Lambert opened his mouth, clearly ready to tear him a new one, when the bronze straightened his mighty neck and pushed his snout right up against Jaskier’s tunic.

“T’Roth, no-” Lambert started, his face going pale.

“Stay very still,” Triss hissed, one hand held out placatingly toward the bronze. The gravity in her voice gave Jaskier a sense of just how badly he had fucked up.

T’Roth nosed in closer, huffing a hot breath that ruffled the bard’s hair. Jaskier thought he felt the dragon’s front teeth brush his chest and whimpered. That was when he felt it - like a gentle brush in his thoughts.

_ Funny little lark. _

Jaskier gaped. Against his will, one of his hands, which had flown up in the air in surrender, came to rest on T’Roth’s snout. The same misbehaving appendage proceeded to very slowly scratch the same place on his chin where Faerth had been itchy.

T’Roth let out a rumbling purr.

Out the corner of his eye, Jaskier saw Lambert smack his own forehead and groan. “Faranth’s egg, T’Roth. You can not be serious.”

Triss let out a relieved sigh.

Jaskier only had eyes for the dragon. Carefully, oh so carefully, he dipped his fingers in the salve and dabbed it on the infected eye. The bronze huffed gently at him.

“You talked to me,” the bard said, smiling as he applied the medicine. T’Roth remained quiet, but Jaskier felt that brush to his thoughts again with the distinct impression the bronze would be rolling his eyes at him, were he human. “What a good boy. That feels better, right? You are  _ miraculous _ ,” he breathed. T’Roth rumbled approvingly.

The high of the encounter kept Jaskier in a daze through clean up, when Eskel appeared to collect him. Jaskier said goodbye to Triss and the rider guided Jaskier through another confusing set of corridors leading down into the mountain.

The air became thicker and wetter as they walked and Jaskier heard the sound of running water. He blinked away his daze, trying to push back the feeling of the dragon’s warm skin under his palms.

“Is that…?”

“The baths,” Eskel said, nodding. They turned the corner to a steam-filled room carved from the mountain and a series of swirling pools. Some riders were bathing nude or scrubbing their clothes in the warm, steamy current.

“The water flows through the core of the mountain. Stays pretty clean. Men bathe before dinner, women after.” The rider paused, then wrinkled his nose. “Candidates bathe in the morning,” he added. “They are hardly dirty enough to need it before sleep. I suppose you could bathe then if you prefer…” He looked at Jaskier.

“No, no need.”

Eskel nodded once and began stripping, throwing his clothes into a basket by the wall and settling into one of the pools. Jaskier rushed to follow his example, hoping the steam obscured him enough to preserve his dignity.

As soon as Jaskier dipped in the water, his skin began to redden.

“Flames! How hot is this water?”

“Not as hot as it could be,” Eskel chuckled. “The pools on that end are the hottest and they cool as they make their way down.” The rider gestured vaguely to the other end of the bathing room. “The water is heated naturally by the heart of the mountain, as is most of Kaer Morhen.”

Explanation complete, Eskel tipped his head back to rest against the stone lip of the pool and sighed.

Jaskier was inclined to agree. Now that he was getting used to the heat, the water was easing his sore muscles and massaging the aches out of his feet. He was nearly dozing when the sound of bathers welcoming a newcomer roused him.

A flash of white from the corner of his eye was all the warning Jaskier had before he had a full view of rider Geralt, wearing the silver medallion that marked him a wingleader and nothing else. Even more silvery thread scars laced his forearms, a few biting into his shoulders. One long scar, pink instead of silver, as though from a normal wound, stretched from his last rib to his hip bone. Jaskier wanted to trace it with his tongue.

He was immediately struck with the conflicting impulses to drown himself and offer to scrub the rider’s back.

The white-haired rider barely glanced at where Jaskier and Eskel were soaking before making his way to, of course, the hottest pools in the room.

When Jaskier turned, he saw that Eskel was not napping as he thought, but watching him with those sharp yellow eyes.

“You met Geralt, then."

Jaskier shrugged. “Met, annoyed, take your pick. I’m fairly sure he hates me.”

Eskel hummed. “What you have to understand is that Geralt hates everyone a little, but never more than he hates himself.”

“You, good rider, are as cryptic as an Aretuza soothsayer.” The rider laughed.

“Let it not be so!” Eskel pushed his hair out of his eyes with wet fingers. His eyes had a faraway look. “Geralt...well burdens have always settled more heavily on him than the rest of us, even when we were weyrlings together. And the last century has not been kind. But you,” Eskel flicked water in Jaskier’s direction. “I think he may hate you less than normal.”

“What gave you that impression? Was it how he had to rescue me from bitter candidates or how he can barely stand to look at my pasty holdbred complexion?” Jaskier smiled at the rider to show he was joking, but Eskel’s gaze sharpened.

“Candidates giving you trouble?”

“No, no, do not start with that. You have been lovely, welcoming me to the weyr, but those Nilfgaardians could be under your wingleader soon. I am just a bard - and I have twenty turns of experience looking after myself.”

“So it was the Nilfgaardians,” Eskel said darkly, clearly ignoring the rest of what Jaskier had to say.

“Eskel-”

“Not to worry, buttercup.” The rider began scrubbing the soot from his nails. “A problem for another candlemark. We have to get you clean and ready for your performance.”

Ah, it was nearly time for Jaskier to sing. His fingers twitched, eager for their instrument. Eskel shot him a smile, like he knew.

“You owe us a song. And I get to tease Lambert about his dragon’s new favorite human.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me. If you, like me, can't help but edit as you read, please feel free to let me know about any especially egregious errors in grammar or source material. If you enjoyed, toss a kudos to your writer (sorry, sorry) and I'll see you in the next installment.
> 
> Also, I am open for dragon name suggestions! In Pernese tradition, all dragon names end in "-th." If you have a favorite dragon name, comment below.


	3. Chapter 3

If they never had to host a hatching again, it would be too soon.

“In a few turns, all of this can be _your_ responsibility.” Vesemir gestured vaguely to the busy great hall from the corner where they were half-heartedly playing gwent. The old rider smelled sharply of Mahakaman mead and was well on his way to stumbling drunk. It was the only reason Geralt was winning.

“You have plenty of turns in you yet, Vesemir,” Geralt said, prying the bottle from his mentor’s hands. “Besides, I’m no weyrleader.”

Vesemir snorted harshly. “Roath flew Umnoth the first time, and that Vengerberg snake has yet to own up to the sire of this clutch. As far as I can gather, the title is yours.”

Geralt sighed. Vesemir’s animosity for the gold rider was a loose secret in the weyr - one cared much for tradition, and the other, very little.

As much as he was loath to admit it, Geralt had been assuming more weyrleader duties since Vesemir was busy scaring candidates into obedience. His whole day had been spent putting out fires: flying a timid Aedirnian candidate home after he had broken down in fits, scolding candidates in the clutching sands, and having rushed meetings with Yennefer, who was increasingly agitated as the eggs came close to hatching.

The tribute negotiations with the smoldering ruins of Creyden-that-was had been nearly enough to drive Geralt to the bottle himself. Their Holder probably knew little about the dark past of Creyden Hold and their dead gold rider, but every time Geralt looked at him, he felt the ghost of Renfri over his shoulder. When he closed his eyes, he could almost remember what she looked like, river-quick on golden Iseth, wind in her hair, laughing.

Geralt forced himself back to the present. Most of the hall had filled for the evening meal when the echo of an instrument being strummed carried over the chatter.

“Faranth’s egg, here we go,” Vesemir said, rubbing at his ale-reddened eyes and nose. From where they were sitting, Geralt could make out the bard, now in a pleated lavender vest, standing before the central fireplace. He looked refreshed and bright, not at all like he had earlier in the day, covered in soot and flinching at the Nilfgaardian’s petty words. His hair was still damp and curling from the baths.

“I am Jaskier! Your humble bard,” he introduced himself. His voice was clear, and it carried. Then the bard began to play.

For the first half of the song, the weyrfolk behaved like the same, intractable crowd Geralt knew. They barely responded to the song, continued talking amongst themselves, and mostly ignored the bard.

It was by the end of the second song - an especially raunchy rendition of The Wherry-Catcher’s Lover that had Geralt hoping Ciri had gone to bed early - that the crowd came alive. Soon, the hall was filled with deafening clapping and laughter, some riders shouting out what new quarry the Wherry-Catcher should catch. That transitioned smoothly into Little Queen All Golden, an old tune that had even Vesemir nodding his head and some Lyrian candidates began dancing between the rows.

The last song of the set was one Geralt had never heard before. It had a straining melody and lyrics about a mourning dragon mother. From the corner of his eye, Geralt saw one of the cooks break down crying in the third verse.

Then it dawned on him.

“It’s a new song,” Geralt said, feeling something twist in him. Earlier that day Yennefer had confessed another egg was stillborn, and strains of Umnoth’s grief reached Roath’s mind. “This is about Umnoth.”

“Hmm,” Vesemir grunted, but his eyes were sharp. They watched the bard hold onto the last, keening notes, held tilted dramatically in sorrow as he trailed off into silence.

The hall was quiet. Geralt could hear the low crackle of the fireplace. Slowly, someone by the kitchen began to clap, followed by a chorus of cheers, and then the whole hall was drowning in noise.

Geralt looked to Vesemir, who had a strange expression on his face, just in time for Eskel to find them.

“So? Is it not a perfect idea? A weyr bard, a barker for us! Maybe the holds will hear this one.” Eskel smiled widely, slapping Vesemir on the back.

“One bard is not going to change anything,” Geralt said. “Thread will. The holds only tolerate us because they have to. That is the way it has always been.”

“But it need not be,” Eskel persisted, pulling up a chair and peeking at Vesemir’s gwent hand. “Remember the songs?” he said, glancing at Geralt. “They can need us _and_ cheer for us.”

Geralt had a flash of what Eskel had been like as a boy, always racing to keep up with Geralt, spoiling Llwydth and Roath rotten. _We fight the thread_ together _, Geralt._ Geralt had stopped counting how long their dragon bonds had stretched their lives after two hundred turns, but Eskel had never lost the enthusiasm of his youth.

“That is not even the best part,” he said, pausing for effect. Vesemir raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “T’Roth spoke to him.”

Geralt kept his face impassive, but Eskel’s sly smile told him it was useless. Some dragons never spoke to another human other than their rider. A few, like Eskel’s Llwydth, would send brief messages and images when it suited them. Almost all the dragons could be persuaded to talk to Ciri if she followed them around long enough. It was one of the things that made her so special to the weyr.

Lambert’s T’Roth had only ever spoken to two people that Geralt knew of, and now, with the bard, it was three.

Eskel pointedly looked away from the riders and down at the cards, repositioned one of Vesemir’s soldiers, and stood. “Well, we have plenty of time to see how the bard will fit. I, for one, could use the cheer.” He clapped Geralt’s shoulder and wandered off into the crowd.

Vesemir snorted.

“What?” Geralt said, looking up from his hand.

“Eskel’s won this one, boy,” he said, pointing to the table where Geralt’s card had been rendered useless.

  
  
  


It was a running theme in Geralt’s week. By resting day, everyone was whistling the bard’s songs. Though he would never admit it, even Geralt caught himself humming a bit in the baths, after which he did perimeter checks in the cold autumn wind for the half-night it took to get it out of his head.

Then at last, very early one morning, Geralt woke in a sweat, muscles thrumming with energy. A familiar feeling tickled at the back of his head, and then it hit him.

“Roath!” he reached out mentally for his dragon, frantic, pulling on a shirt and starting down the hall. A long, low, dragon call started in the distance and reverberated through the weyr.

He broke into a run.

_Geralt! They come,_ Roath called, brimming with excitement. Geralt saw the clutching cavern briefly through his eyes; Umnoth with her tail lashing through the air, Yennefer shouting for the kitchens to bring more meat.

By the time Geralt burst into the cavern, a handful of weyrfolk and candidates had already gathered and nearly all the weyr’s dragons were perched along the lip of the volcano, waiting eagerly.

He spied Yennefer at the edge of the sandy pit, her face hidden in Umnoth’s neck, still in her sleeping robes.

“Yen,” he came and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. When she looked up, her eyes were wet. “Oh Yen,” he said. She had always wanted children, and in some ways, Umnoth’s young were hers as well.

Just then, his sharp ears caught the smallest cracking sound, like spring ice breaking, and a small blue egg began to split. First a small chip of shell came off, then the whole egg seemed to cleave apart, and a perfect pale blue dragonet tumbling out, wet and trembling. Its small, triangular head turned unsteadily as it looked around the room and it let out a plaintive caw.

Yennefer’s hand clenched in Geralt’s shirt. He could feel her desire to go to the hatchling like a tangible creature, but she resisted. Only the new rider could go to the fledgling, and most of the candidates were still being woken.

The dragonet cried out again, a small, tremulous noise, and Yennefer flinched.

Just then, a kitchen boy arrived, arms overflowing with prepared meat for the hungry new dragons. The little blue shrieked, took a few, wobbly steps toward him, and collapsed on the sand.

The meat slipped from the kitchen boy’s arms, forgotten, as he bolted into the pit, falling to his knees before the hatchling. His legs would surely be burnt the next day, but he did not seem to care.

Seeing them come together, Umnoth let out a triumphant call, and the hatching began.

After that first, eventful Impression on a kitchen hand, the proceedings went more smoothly. Soon enough, the boy was settled in the corner with his blue, feeding it bloody scraps of meat, and the room was filled with candidates who were actually wearing heat-resistant boots like they were supposed to. The hopefuls ringed each egg in small circles; the largest rings of candidates crowded around the bronze eggs, and a whole hoard around the gold. Triss was at hand with bandages in case someone got run down by an overzealous Impression. Roath perched at attention, not far from Umnoth. Even Jaskier stumbled in at some point, hair and clothes mussed distractingly with sleep.

Geralt stood by his dragon and placed a hand on Roath’s neck.

“Remember when you were that small?” he said, watching an especially tiny green dragonet Impress.

Roath snorted. _I was never so little._ It was true; Roath had been the largest bronze in his clutch, and most of the clutches that came after. Vesemir despaired at how much he ate.

The dragon tipped his head at Geralt. _I remember you, though. I could feel you were there, even inside my shell._

Geralt sighed and scratched Roath’s scaly brow. “You were perfect.”

The bronze’s eyes swirled. _I know._

Geralt barked out a laugh when someone launched at him from behind, arms wrapping around his neck and legs around his waist.

“A rider is never caught off guard!” she shrieked. Geralt hooked his elbows under her knees and hiked her higher up his back.

“Ciri. You know candidates are supposed to wait over there.” He inclined his head toward the seating area by the sands.

She giggled. “But the others are so boring. And Roath missed me! You did, right?” The bronze lowered his head to her eye level.

_Always, little one._

Geralt bit back a sigh. Roath was never on his side when it came to Ciri.

“Alright, down you go,” Geralt said. The girl reluctantly slid off his back, as if dismounting a dragon. Geralt caught sight of Tissaia looking around the room. While many riders were still in their sleep clothes, the instructress was immaculate in her high-collared, dragonskin dress. She caught sight of Ciri and her eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Looks like you’ve been found out,” Geralt whispered to his foster daughter, who looked up at him pleadingly.

“Save me?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“And bring on Tissaia’s wrath?” he said, skeptically. Ciri giggled, but reluctantly started toward her teacher. She was younger than the gathered candidates, but two years in the weyr and all that had happened before had aged her. Ciri’s eyes were more grave, smiles wrier, than many older nobles.

The candlemark burned on. Most of the dragons had hatched by the late morning, and candidates of low and high birth had Impressed the dragonets when Yennefer came to him.

“She’s coming,” Yen told him quietly. Geralt looked at the gold egg. The cluster of hopefuls remained ringed around the queen egg let out excited shrieks as a fissure broke through the shell. A particularly ambitious Nilfgaardian candidate rushed forward and tore off bits of the shell until the little dragonet spilled onto the sand.

The whole room was quiet. Geralt could barely hear anyone breathe as they watched the tiny queen unfurl, shake her head, and blink. She was perfectly proportioned with delicate, sculpted wings and wet, gleaming skin. The young gold looked around the room, let out a chirp, and started determinedly scrabbling in one direction.

The girl directly in front of the gold let out a cry of joy, but the dragonet ignored her, pressing past. The tenacious candidate who had helped to open the shell moved in front of the dragonet as well. The gold, annoyed, slashed out in her direction with a sharp caw and stumbled faster. The candidate screamed, bright red blood spilling onto the sand, and Geralt saw Triss rush over, medicinal bag in hand.

The little dragon did not even look back. She pushed through watchers and weyrfolk, now moving quickly out of her way, stumbled up to the stands, and looked up with a long, sad, cry.

Looked up at Ciri.

“Oh,” she said, tripping her way down the stands, crouching nimbly in front of the dragon. “Oh, it’s you. It’s you.”

A smile broke onto Ciri’s face, so warmly and slowly, Geralt felt a twinge in his chest and he could not tell if it came from Roath or himself.

_Little one,_ Roath purred, and Geralt nodded once.

Of course, the moment was quickly ruined when the bard rushed clumsily past Geralt toward the sand. Geralt shot an arm out automatically, catching him around the waist.

“Where do you think you’re going,” Geralt growled, hauling the bard onto his feet.

Jaskier barely looked at him.

“Let me go!” he shouted, struggling with surprising strength against Geralt’s arms. He switched to grip the bard by the wrists and Jaskier tried to twist away so hard, the rider began to worry he would hurt himself. “Unhand me this instant! She _needs_ me.”

Geralt’s body registered the words before his mind did, or perhaps it was Roath through their bond who made his fingers loosen around Jaskier’s wrists. The bard yanked free and rushed onto the burning sands.

Heedless of his feet, which were, absurdly, bare, Jaskier came to a halt in the far corner of the sands, where a tiny, perfect green hatchling was looking up at him.

Eskel woke Jaskier so early, the sky was still dark.

“It’s time, Jaskier.” He shook the bard’s shoulder.

“Go away, sharding rider.” Jaskier had somehow managed to get into a drinking contest with some riders after his performance the night before, and Eskel, shard him, had done nothing to stop him.

“Fine, miss the hatching. It’s not like there will be anything to sing about.”

Jaskier jolted upright.

“ _What?_ ”

Eskel rolled his eyes and left without another word. He did not bother to close the door.

Jaskier had many skills, but dressing while running was not one of them. By the time he burst into the hatching cavern, already filled with crowds of candidates and riders, his shirt was probably on backward and his hair was in disarray. He had forgotten his boots altogether.

But none of that mattered. Almost as soon as he arrived, a miniature bronze Impressed a candidate right in front of him. The boy was smiling so widely, it looked like he might cry.

The next few candlemarks were chaos. Bright flashes of dragons dipped in and out the cavern, making exultant noises. Some candidates who Impressed cried, others laughed in delight. None of them had eyes for anything or anyone but their new companion, barely looking up when they were given bowls of meat to feed their hungry charges.

Although it was a happy, glorious moment for some, Jaskier noticed many candidates being passed over. A few gravitated toward another, as of yet unhatched, egg. Others slipped away to the edges of the room, mouths pulled down at the corners, dark looks in their eyes.

No look was so dark as Fringilla’s when the gold egg finally hatched. High wall torches had been extinguished and replaced with sunlight by the time the gold egg began to wobble. The female candidates surrounding the egg gasped and called out while Fringilla boldly hurried to tear off pieces of shell as it hatched. Was that allowed? Jaskier looked around, but none of the seasoned riders intervened. In fact, none of the riders seemed to want to get close to the hatchings at all. While weyr workers, servants, and kitchen hands sometimes came close to the newly Impressed, and Triss was attending the burns on one boy’s legs, the riders gave them a respectful berth, watching them with wistful eyes, their serious faces softening with something tender.

Despite Fringilla’s efforts, the little gold’s path was away from the circle. Then the girl moved to block the dragonet’s path and Jaskier suddenly understood what Triss meant when she said dragons _usually_ did not harm humans.

The gold may have been tiny, not terribly larger than Summer, but its claws were sharp. Three red lines gouged into Fringilla’s arm from elbow to wrist and she screamed. Triss was already on her way, and he had been her helper long enough, he could already guess which bandages and poultices she would use.

Blood spilled out from between Fringilla’s fingers where she was squeezing the cuts shut and onto the sands. Jaskier winced in sympathy. Her eyes were dark and bitter as the dragon climbed toward the stands, coming to a halt in front of a young, ashen haired girl Jaskier had seen dancing around the riders.

The girl, Ciri, he remembered her name, crouched before the hatchling, a brilliant smile lighting up her face.

“It’s you.” Jaskier could just barely hear her saying. As he watched, her eyes seemed to become even more green and mirror-like, shimmering in the shadows of the cavern like the other rider’s. He started pushing through the crowd to see her better when he felt something so lonely, so devastating, he cried out.

_Where are you?_

He looked around, desperate, for the source, and took off in its direction.

_Are you leaving me?_ it asked.

Never! He could feel himself getting closer, something hopeful stirring in his chest, when something immovable shot out and caught around his waist, knocking the air out of him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” his captor grunted. Jaskier barely recognized it was the white-haired rider before he was struggling to get away, wheezing, but Geralt just seized him by the wrists.

“Let me go!” he cried. “Unhand me this instant! She _needs_ me.”

Either his shouting worked, or he had a sudden rush of strength because he broke free and bolted across the sands.

He found her there, struggling, delicate body straining toward him.

“I’m here! I’m here!” Jaskier knelt in the sands and scooped her up in his arms, breathing steadily at last. Her horns were faintly blue at the tips as was her snout, her beautiful emerald body wriggling in happiness.

_I thought you were leaving!_ she said tremulously. _What took you so long?_

“I have not the faintest idea,” Jaskier breathed. After all, what on the whole continent was worth making this perfect creature wait?

_Pankrath,_ she said, bumping her nose into his chest.

“Pankrath,” he said. “I’m Jaskier.”

_I know._ The little green chirruped. _Are you hurt, Jas?_

“What?” he asked. Pankrath craned her smooth neck to look at his bare feet and Jaskier saw that they had become red and stuck with hot sand, burns and blisters had already begun to form on his skin.“Oh,” he said, feeling nauseated, and the pain caught up to him all at once. “That looks _awful_ ,” he added emphatically, and fainted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Were you surprised? Did you see it coming? I'm looking for a few more dragon names, male and female - if you come up with one you love, let me know! In the Pern books, all dragon names end in -th, which I've been told recently is because dragons lisp!
> 
> Since this fic combined worlds, there are some departures from Pern. If you're curious about Anne McCaffrey's world, or if any of the terms confuse you, this page is a great source:
> 
> https://pern.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! See notes for trigger warnings.

The bard slept through the day and most of the night, and then woke delirious with fever.

“Pankrath?” he gasped, eyes open but unseeing, reaching out instinctively. Geralt sat up in the chair he had been waiting in since evening.

_Here!_ The little green uncurled from the foot of the bed and nosed at Jaskier’s outstretched hand. He sighed.

Geralt cleared his throat. “Jaskier, you need to drink this.” The rider held the draught Triss had left to the bard’s lips.

“No, Pankrath, I need to feed her-”

“She’s been taken care of.” Geralt grimaced a bit at his own words. It was unheard of to care for another rider’s hatchling. If it had ever happened before he had not heard of it.

And yet he had done it. When the bard had fainted, Geralt scooped him and the dragonet up in his arms and carried them off the burning sands. On the cool stone floor, Triss looked at his feet and sighed.

“He will not be walking on these anytime soon.”

The soles of his feet had already begun to blister and were bleeding at the heels. His calves up to the knees were red and raw. Bits of sand and grit had wedged into the flesh. The newly hatched green crawled onto Jaskier’s chest and crooned sadly.

_Hurt?_ she had asked Geralt. He could feel her concern for her bonded, and underneath it, her hunger.

“Geralt,” Triss nodded to him. “Help me carry him to the infirmary.”

Slowly, careful not to touch the newborn green, Geralt lifted the bard with his hatchling still on his chest and began to follow Triss out of the hatching cavern.

The healer stopped and picked out a bag of meat scraps from the kitchen staff on the way. In the infirmary, Geralt lay the bard on the nearest cot and Triss gave him the meat while she got to work on a poultice. The dragonet sniffed it eagerly from next to Jaskier, hunger evident.

Slowly, Geralt reached into the dripping bag and placed one ruby sliver of meat on the bard’s stomach which the green snapped up. She sniffed the red-brown wet spot on the bard's shirt and mewed at Geralt.

He fed her this way, never touching the young dragon until her stomach was stretched tight and shiny. She yawned, long and satisfied, before nuzzling into the bard’s neck and snoring loudly into his ear. The man did not stir, his unconscious face pulled into a tight frown.

“An unexpected Impression,” Triss said lightly. It was a question, and it was not. She poured an alcoholic tonic onto his ruined feet and began picking the gravel from his flesh with long metal sticks.

“Hmm,” Geralt rumbled, noncommittal. The tiny green sighed in her sleep.

“It will not sit well with some of the others,” Triss said, not looking up from the bard’s feet. She wiped at the heel with a damp rag and a wet clot of sand and blood came away. Geralt was used to injuries, by men and thread, from dragonkind, but on the bard’s soft, unmarred skin, it felt wrong, like watching a child heft a too-large sword.

This would be a hard place for him, Geralt began to realize, the potential centuries the bard could face fighting thread stretched out before them. The years would be unkind, the scars beyond counting. And the riders, meant to be his own family through the endless battle with threadfall, would be slow to accept an outsider, not even a candidate, who Impressed.

“The senior riders will come around,” Geralt said finally, since Triss was waiting for an answer. She did not rush to fill the silence as others would do. “A dragon’s choice is never wrong.”

“I did not mean the riders,” she said quietly. The bitter expressions on the unchosen candidates flashed through Geralt’s mind. “He’ll need looking out for.”

Geralt did not answer - he did not need to. Triss knew he would keep an eye out for the bard. _Easily manipulated,_ Vesemir had called him, venomously, after he let an older candidate beat him at swords as a child. Geralt had known he could win, seen the opening on the left side, and let it slide away. The look on the other boy’s face had been satisfied, relieved. Geralt had always been slow to learn.

Movement from the cot drew the rider’s eye. The hatchling had one eye open sleepily, regarding him.

_Mine,_ she said.

“I know,” he told her. It was enough. The green closed her eye and went back to sleep.

Over the next few days in recovery, Geralt stopped by the new pair often, mostly to feed Pankrath. She was talkative and open with her feelings, which made Geralt feel unbalanced.

_Yeeees!_ she sang, smelling the fresh venison in his hands, winging over to nose at the food. Jaskier slept fitfully in the cot, sometimes waking to look for his dragon before slipping under. 

_I am so glad you came,_ Pankrath purred, glutting herself. _It is too quiet here._

“How would you know?” Geralt asked, amused.

_I just do._ She licked her chops.

Finally, _finally,_ the bard recovered. Geralt came, food in hand, to see Jaskier sitting up in the narrow bed, Pankrath on his lap, purring like heavy rain.

“Here,” Geralt said, tossing the leather bag of scraps onto the bed. Jaskier startled and looked up.

“Whu-?” he said.

“Eloquent,” Geralt commented, deadpan. He did not have to elaborate; Pankrath perked up at the smell of meat, pushing her snout to the bag, to Jaskier’s hand. The bard opened it and gagged.

“Is this raw-? Oh no.” He cringed at the slippery meat in his hand, but Pankrath’s hunger must have won out through the bond because he began to feed her dutifully, his disgusted expression replaced with something else.

Pankrath was already growing, patches of skin getting crusty and flaking off. Jaskier would not have been prepared like the others, in the weeks before the hatching, on how often hatchlings would need care and attention, grooming, and food. Rearing hatchlings was as exhausting and raising children, he had been told.

Geralt went to Triss’s herb tables, unstoppered one bottle to confirm it was what he was looking for, and set it on the stool beside Jaskier.

“Oil,” he said, and the bard, intriguingly, blushed.

“What?” he squeaked.

Geralt nodded to the little green, who was swallowing whole chunks of flesh without chewing.

“Her skin is dry. It needs attention and fats, more than you think, or her growth will be painful for both of you.” Roath’s growth spurts had been horrible, itchy affairs, and they both had longed for vats of olive oil to ease the constant scratching.

Jaskier cleared his throat. “Right! Right, of course. Pan-”

The green looked at her bonded rider, flicked out her bloody tongue, and licked his nose.

“No! Naughty dragon!” Pankrath snorted mirthfully, and Geralt left them be. He hoped their proximity and his feeding her did not disrupt the new pair’s bond, and seeing them playful together eased something tight in his chest.

That evening, as he and Roath returned from dropping off unclaimed candidates, he reveled in the bronze’s happiness. Watching the new dragons chirping and eating and sleeping around Kaer Morhen had reinvigorated many of the older dragons, made them sit taller, prouder.

As they blinked _Between_ and appeared in the ring of mountains surrounding the weyr, Geralt spotted it, low and heavy on the horizon, glowing sickly red.

_Stone heart,_ Roath said, and Geralt knew, even before they landed in the courtyard where Yen was waiting, even as they told him what the Star Stones said, what he already knew.

Threadfall was coming. It was coming soon.

_Sulking does not suit you,_ Pankrath sniffed from her window perch in the infirmary. Although Jaskier’s burns had healed months ago, Triss had taken advantage of his proximity to make him her potion slave in every moment he was not performing music, caring for Pan, or learning under Nenneke’s stern eye. In other words, he was so busy, he appreciated his short bouts of servitude.

But it was true: he was sulking. Pan was rarely wrong about him, and even a stranger would have seen the listless way he ground dried lavender and guessed his mood.

“Everything suits me,” he grumbled.

_Liar_ , Pan said, swirling her eyes. Then, more softly, _they’ll come back._

It was the fear he was avoiding. Threadfall had first touched the Continent when Pan was three months old, and the weyr had plunged into chaos. The flights of dragons, with their armored riders and fire-magic, had blinked _Between_ to the farmlands where the thread was scorching the land, leaving the new riders with hatchlings too small to fly behind.

They were gone three days, the first time. Jaskier had been nervous, fretting about with Summer and Pankrath, anxiously tuning his lute and watching the road.

It was one of the few times Jaskier questioned his place at the weyr. He rarely had patience for regret, but watching the empty path up the mountain, feeling the hollowness of the weyr and the stories that must be happening as the riders returned made him ache to compose, to move, to travel.

Jaskier spent one long day on the walls he had scaled to break in, and considered, only for a moment, breaking out of them.

_We could,_ Pan said thoughtfully. _We can live in the wilds, like Umnoth did!_

Umnoth was her idol, the role model for every new hatchling. The story of how Yennefer had ventured into the range, alone, and emerged bonded to the wild gold was the stuff of legends. But Jaskier was not cut out for living deep in the mountains, and the roads and holds of the Continent were not a place for a growing dragon. So he had packed up his wanderlust and stuffed it deep, deep down, and gone to feed Pan, who was getting hungry yet again.

Another time Jaskier felt the faint pangs of regret were when the dragons rose to mate. It was not something he would have thought to prepare for, although he should have. Countless ballads had been spun around the great dragons and the twin romances of riders and beasts. Still, the sudden, uncomfortable reality of mating seasons in a busy weyr had been an adjustment.

The adult green dragons with their lusty appetites and seductive whirling eyes rose often to mate, sometimes in batches. On those days their desire hummed through the weyr, the feeling catching like the cold.

When Faerth and Elloth rose, Jaskier had been carrying bandages from the washrooms by the cavernous bathing pools to the infirmary, and the basket had slid from his fingers as the want sliced through him, hot and needy. He barely made it back to his room before he was pushing a hand into his pants, sweat beading on his forehead as he came with a rush.

The rest of the day he was queasy, walking about on shaking baby deer legs. Eskel got one look at him in the great hall and started laughing so hard he bent over.

“It gets easier, flower,” he said, patting him mightily on the back. “Soon you’ll be old and able to brush off the green flights.”

Jaskier began to doubt that. Although Pan was years off from maturity yet, the needs of the green dragons seemed to hit him harder than the other riders, and they were nothing compared to Umnoth’s mating flight.

Half a turn had passed after the hatching when a low rumble began in the heart of the mountain. Green flights were playful, indulgent things that failed to produce eggs. They were times for riders to enjoy themselves as their dragons flirted and bonded with each other. In contrast, the gold flight was a weight on all of them. The future of the weyr, and the world, hung in the balance. Jaskier heard a young rider exclaiming excitedly soon after the humming began in all of their bonds.

“It’s Umnoth! She’s felled _four_ runnerbeasts. She’s blooded them all!”

“It will be a long flight, then,” someone else chimed in, clapping happily. “The longer the flight, the more eggs in the clutch!”

Nenneke had come then, her presence changing the atmosphere of the room. As wingleader for the Heart Wing, which was comprised of younger green riders, Nenneke kept Jaskier under her stern tutelage. Although she was dry-witted and short with all of them, her disapproval lay most heavily, it felt, on Jaskier, who was always tripping or flirting or rushing off when she managed to catch him for lessons.

“Off to your rooms now, quickly!” she hissed at them. “It begins.”

Jaskier did try. He did. But Pan was lost somewhere in a flurry of wings, eagerly gliding about with the other greens, and he had to leave her to stumble for his room in the north wing. It was slow going - he was dizzy and sweating like he had a fever. The hot neediness of the green flights was back with a vengeance, and desperate this time. The halls swum in his vision and Jaskier had to pause to close his eyes and lean his forehead against the cool stone wall.

“Jaskier? Jaskier!” He heard the voice as if from far away. It sounded stern, impatient, as though someone had been trying to get his attention for some time. It was a voice he knew.

Jaskier blinked his eyes open.

“Flame take it all, Jaskier,” Geralt cursed. “Why aren’t you in your quarters? Umnoth is rising!”

As if he did not already know! The golden dragon’s lust had filled his veins like alcohol. He was bubbling with it. Geralt was awfully grumpy with him for someone who sulked around the healing wing so often when he was hurt. Jaskier opened his mouth to explain himself, but when he tried to speak, a long moan came out instead.

Geralt’s serious face froze like a mask. His eyes, more advanced by years of dragon bonding than Jaskier’s, burned amber in the shadowy hall.

“Jaskier,” he started again, “it’s just the flight-”

But at the same time, somewhere in the skies above the weyr, Umnoth roared with pleasure at the chase as bronzes and browns and blues competed for her. Her desire was inescapable, and Jaskier had always wanted the rider before him.

Jaskier.’s body moved without his permission. He swayed forward and up into Geralt’s space, clumsy arms reaching to tangle around his neck, and pressed his mouth to the bronze rider’s.

Geralt was perfectly still as Jaskier moved his scorching lips against his, breathing his air. Jaskier let out a sigh and pressed closer, moving automatically, parting his lips in a wet, open-mouthed kiss.

For one, blistering moment, Geralt kissed him back. He pressed Jaskier toward the wall, dragged his teeth over his lower lip, and tilted his head to push closer. Then the moment was over, and Geralt was swinging Jaskier over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Geralt!” Jaskier cried, embarrassed and surprised. If he were not already warm all over from the queen flight and the kiss, he would have blushed at the way his hardness nudged at Geralt’s shoulder.

Then they were at his room. Geralt’s purposeful strides were so much more effective than Jaskier in his inebriated state. Geralt yanked the door open - yes! Jaskier thought - and threw Jaskier inside before slamming the door shut.

Jaskier sat sprawled on the floor in shock, still thrumming with want. On the other side of the door, in the empty hall, was Geralt who had kissed him back and then left him alone. Jaskier suddenly felt cold. He started to tremble.

“Geralt!” he called, indignant and sad.

“It’s just the queen flight, you’ll be over it by morning,” came the rider’s gruff voice. Jaskier listened as his footsteps disappeared down the hall. He was alone. He pulled his knees into his chest and hugged them there as he shook and shook until Umnoth’s flight was over.

Jaskier had no chance to catch the bronze rider again before the next threadfall. It was a massive one, and the entirety of the Wolf, Snake, and Griffin Flights were called to action. They were gone longer than they had ever been in Jaskier’s time at the weyer, and not even Pankrath could soothe him.

“Is he still pouting?” came a high, clear voice. Ciri peeked in, Riannoth draped over her shoulder like a glittering gold cape.

_Yes!_ Pan flapped her wings indignantly.

“No!” Jaskier protested. Ciri giggled and came to sit at one of Triss’s apothecary benches. She was still so young and small, her feet dangled off the floor.

“Well if you are busy pining, I suppose you would not want to come see how many eggs are in Umnoth’s clutch with me…” Ciri peaked at Jaskier under her eyelashes and Jaskier folded like a bad Gwent hand.

Umnoth had kept the weyr on its toes by shockingingly bypassing the bronzes to mate with Tissaia’s blue F’noth. Blue sires were so rare, the weyr astronomers spent several sleepless nights digging up every record they could find to see if it affected the number of eggs. Umnoth and Yennefer had both refused questioning, instead preparing the incubation sands once again, until the night before when Umnoth began to clutch.

“How do you know the eggs are all clutched?” Jaskier asked, hurrying after Ciri.

“Yennefer told me,” she said, rolling her eyes at him as if to say _obviously_. 

Ciri had been a welcome and unexpected friend to Jaskier over the months since Pan crashed into his life. Jaskier did not fit in with the other new green riders many of whom came from weyr families, or were chosen candidates who had spent months preparing. They looked down at him, like he was dirty, a cheat.

They avoided Ciri, too, mostly because she was jealously guarded by the older riders, rarely seen far from Eskel or Lambert or, of course, Geralt. She was younger than the other Impressed riders, and more than one female candidate was venomously jealous of her gold. Each estranged in their own way, Ciri had befriended Jaskier, showing him secret shortcuts through the weyr while he entertained her with songs and stories about the ocean, Redanian courts, the long roads that spiderwebbed between Holds and Halls.

When they emerged into the sandy cavern where Jaskier had scorched off the soles of his feet so many months ago, he winced.

“Remember the boots this time, eh?” Ciri laughed at him and he put his on with exaggerated care to make her laugh again.

On the sands, Jaskier hesitated to move close to the gold. He had seen Umnoth snap her massive jaws at a Nilfgaardian candidate, and blast fire where an annoying green rider had been standing moments before. But Ciri had no such ears and marched boldly up to Umnoth.

“How are you doing, Umnoth?” she asked, peering up at her swirling eyes. Umnoth huffed in her face so that Ciri’s hair ruffled, and settled down so her chin was on the sand by where her wing was just barely covering some eggs. “Can I see them? Ciri said. Umnoth huffed again and lifted her wing.

The scholars and astronomers need not have worried; Umnoth’s clutch numbered some forty young. The clutch glittered with bronze, green, brown, and blue eggs. One smallish white egg was nestled closest to Umnoth’s golden body. But there were no more gold eggs.

“Just you and Rionnath for now, eh?” Ciri said, coming to the same conclusion as Jaskier. Golds were notoriously rare, even in active clutches. It might be years before Ciri received company.

“Not everyone is as special as you,” Jaskier said, winking at Rionnath, who batted her wings and puffed up her chest. Pan looked at her and then pawed Jaskier’s pant leg, mewling pathetically.

“There is no one for me but you!” Jaskier declared passionately, patting her head. She had only recently grown too large for him to pick up as easily as he once had, and her attention-greedy disposition had suffered for it.

“Strange,” Ciri said with mock thoughtfulness. “I thought perhaps there would be a bronze rider for you…?”

Jaskier felt his ears turn red. Ciri’s keen eyes had caught the way he looked at Geralt every time he entered a room. The first time, she had leveled him with a disappointed look.

“Gross,” she had said then. “He is basically like my father!”

“Have you changed your tune about my inappropriate fancies?” he asked her.

“That was before,” she said, as if he were unforgivably slow.

“Before what!”

“Hmm,” Ciri tossed her hair over her shoulder and scratched under Rionnath’s chin. “You know Roath did not fly for Umnoth this time?”

“What?” Jaskier felt his blush spreading. He remembered that day vividly, and the way Geralt had left him shivering in his room the most.

“It’s true,” Ciri said importantly. “He sent Roath _between_ for the mating. Why do you think he would do such a thing?”

Jaskier could not _stop_ thinking about it, reexamining every touch and moment. He had felt so foolish, falling over himself for Geralt. Geralt, who had found him in the hall and sent his dragon away. Pan was tired of him musing and eager to explore the hatching cavern, so Jaskier left her to it and departed with Ciri. The thought of Geralt occupied him as they walked companionably through the weyr, so much so that he did not notice the others until they were on top of them.

“Get her,” a cold voice came from the shadows in the hall. Jaskier had barely looked up when two Nilfgaardian riders had grabbed Ciri by the arms and pushed her against the wall. Rionnath went wild, shrieking and clawing at them until one of them stuffed her in a large barley sack. She nicked him as he did, and red blood soaked into the sack like dye.

“What do you think you are doing!” Jaskier demanded, shock slowing his system.

“This is none of you business, peasant,” the first voice said. It was Fringilla, who had Impressed a green and did her best to make Jaskier miserable in every lesson, putting itching powder in his dragon oils, leaving him worm-ridden food, once slashing his riding gear so Nenneke gave him the talking to of his life.

But it was just immature school antics, he had thought, familiar with such things from Oxenfurt and the jealousy of competitive harpers. He had brushed it off. This was different.

He lunged for the sack where Rionnath was struggling and it was only with remarkable reflexes that one of the two riders, Cahir, caught him.

“Release her! Harming a gold is treason!” Jaskier shouted at the top of his lungs, hoping someone would overhear and come help, but Cahir silenced him with a powerful punch to the gut that had him doubled over in painful gasps.

“She should have been _mine_!” Fringilla gasped, eyes flickering madly.

With mounting horror, Jaskier recognized a curved blade in her hand.

“If you hurt Ciri,” Jaskier said slowly, as if to an infant, “Rionnath will die. Do you understand that? She will go _between_!”

Fringilla dismissed him with a flick of the blade. “Rionnath will be able to recognize me as the _true_ weir leader without this,” her face contorted in disgust, “this bastard wretch.”

Ciri was struggling cleverly against her captor, but he was twice her size. She stilled as Fringilla traced her chin with the tip of her blade.

_Pan!_ Jaskier thought desperately. She had felt his panic and scrambling frantically through the tunnels from the clutching cavern. _Pan, faster!_

_Jas!_ She screamed in his head. _Jas, stay safe! I am coming, I am-_

She was not going to be there soon enough. The blade had drawn a sliver into Ciri’s cheek and the blood was startlingly bright against her pale skin. As with most things in his life, Jaskier reacted by instinct.

He kneed Cahir in the balls as hard as he could. The second he felt his grip slip, he was diving for Fringilla and had her wrists in his hands by the time they hit the floor. For a few seconds, they grabbed for the knife until it clattered to the floor and Cahir tried to drag him off of her. Jaskier held on, he held on like a barnacle, with all the dexterity of a musician.

Cahir made a grunt of annoyance and kicked him in the ribs. Jaskier heard something crack before he felt it. When he did, he _screamed_.

Pan screamed back. She was a blur of green streaking down the hall, the size of a large dog. She leaped onto Cahir and dug her claws into his flesh. The Nilfgaardian holding Ciri saw Cahir's flesh rip and went pale, pushing Ciri away before fleeing down the hall.

Ciri collapsed on her knees in front of Jaskier.

“Jaskier! It is going to be alright, you are fine, you are fine.”

“Of course I am, little one,” he said, but his voice came out watery. Ciri was holding onto him so hard. He touched her hand on his neck, then her face. His fingers were red.

“What?” he gasped, stupefied at the blood on his hand.

“Her knife-” Ciri was stuttering. Her fingers trembled as she held the wound on his neck closed. “Her knife nicked you.”

Ciri’s sweet face swam in front of him, white as the moon. Pan was chanting his name in his head again and again. It was the last thing he heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: blood and injuries, violence, some spicy sexual tension, and possibly (?) nonconsensual kissing
> 
> Thank you for your patience, all! It has been quite a tough year for many of us, but I do plan on finishing this fic. I hope you enjoyed this part of the story despite the cliff-hanger. Let me know how you think it will play out!
> 
> Cheers,  
> Wrightsworth


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